Bill Bishop
Past supervisor of one of Arizona's first Hotshot crews during the 1970s

"Back then, basically you had your hotshot crews, you had your suppression crews, like your Navajo 1, 2, 3, Hopi 1, 2, 3, and stuff, and you also had some convict crews."

Charlie Denton
Retired career firefighter and district ranger for the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest

"At some point where there is no more firefighters left, we can call on the military. And they come in the battalion size outfit, fully contained, 500 people."

H.B. "Doc" Smith
Program liaison for the NAU Ecological Restoration Institute

"You had a real job, and then you had a firefighting job."

Glen Bennett
Bus driver for firefighters during the summer of 1973

"That, to me is what you should name one of your segments, is 'Yellow Shirts and Paper Bags,' because that's the main thing that I remember of my first fire…"

Bill Bishop
Past supervisor of one of Arizona's first Hotshot crews during the 1970s

"They'd mapped the whole district, and usually you went beside roads or along ridgetops and you would thin the trees out to where you had about twelve- to fourteen-foot spacing between trees, six chains wide—and a chain is sixty-six feet, so about 700 feet wide."

Paul Summerfelt
Fuel Management Officer, City of Flagstaff

"We need to teach [firefighters] not to get into those situations in the first place; not equip them so they can go do it."

Packing for Fire
Mormon Lake Engine Crew

"This is an IA bag, initial attack, standard..."

Donna Ashworth
Author, nineteen-year veteran of the Woody Mountain Lookout

"If from the top of his tree he saw a smoke, he climbed down and went and put it out."

Leigh Kuwanwisiwma
Hopi Hotshot crew member, 1969-1970

"They would send these big trucks out -one-ton trucks out into the village... and all the firefighters that were available...would basically get their duffle bags... jump up in the back, and the truck would just go over into Hotevilla, pick up some more people; over to Oraibi, to Kykotsmovi, and be trucked down to Keams Canyon, and, you know, were ready to go then."